Life
Bridge
The Spring Fours is one of the great events in the English bridge calendar – a five-day knockout attracting many…
Eccles cakes
When I first made Eccles cakes, I’m not sure I really knew where Eccles was. I certainly didn’t think I’d…
Aussie life
In The Australian Ugliness, published in 1960, the architect Robin Boyd remembered a meal in a hotel dining room in…
Language
Now a new and (I think) much needed expression: ‘disagreement consent’. It’s a play on a more familiar expression I…
Wild life
Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and…
Solution to 2551: Madness
The four-letter word was BAND. Unclued lights suggest bandicoot (7A),bandh (11), banda (41), bandana (1D), bandoneon (3), bandook (7D), bandar…
The rise and rise of women’s sport
You might have missed this but something very big is happening in women’s sport. The sheer numbers watching are sensational:…
Porn
Are we living in a new pornocracy? The first one spanned six decades of the 10th century, during which there…
Real life
‘Missing Dog, Please Do Not Call, Chase or Try To Grab Her!! She Will Run!!’ This notice, featuring the face…
The road not taken
In Competition No. 3247, you were asked to submit the reflections of a well-known writer on a career path they…
2554: Going, going…
The unclued lights, including one of two words, are of a kind, all confirmed in Chambers. A further example (4)…
Puzzle no. 701
White to play. Reshevsky-Savon, Petropolis 1973. Reshevsky played the awful 1 Qxg6+, and resigned after 1…Bxg6. Many moves win, but…
Gorilla tactics
There is a video in which a small group of students amble about passing a basketball back and forth. The…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
So that’s it. Is a third world war possible? It’s already begun, opined a retired US general in the newspaper.…
Let us eat cake
Amid the bronze cladding of Soho, with its pop-up, suck-down restaurants – the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Café was a nadir…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We went for lunch over the bank holiday with the parents of one of my son’s schoolfriends. We had…
Bridge
My teammate Thor Erik Hoftaniska is having a bit of a moment. He won last year’s (online) Gold Cup (on…
A police farce
I welcome Jacob Rees-Mogg’s recent announcement that he intends to reignite David Cameron’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ in his capacity…
High life
New York Back in the good old days the Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was the hotel for…
Aussie life
The failure of Russian forces to achieve their Ukrainian objectives is said to have surprised nobody more than their commander-in-chief.…
Language
The current prominence of the word ‘gaffe’ is due to the Gaffe Meister himself – Joe Biden. But on investigation…
2553: Island alien
The unclued lights (15 words in total) are to be arranged to provide a definition from Chambers of one of…
The Metaphor Map
‘What’s that?’ asked my husband, looking at my laptop. ‘Fibonacci fossilised?’ His question made no sense, but I saw what…
Low life
On the morning of my last day in England, I drew back a curtain and there in the garden, browsing…
